Chapter 10:
“Gem!”
Ben’s eyes widened as a green-clad woman went from attacking his friend to sailing straight at him. It happened so fast that he almost didn’t have time to react when he realized what was happening. So instead of doing the smart thing and backing off to dodge, Ben used a move he'd been considering and practicing while waiting for Katie.
With the crystal he’d been holding since Katie went inside the building, waiting for a chance to do anything, he stabbed out at the woman like he was holding the hilt of a sword and willed with everything he had to release energy out of just the top of the crystal.
For just a second, he saw the very confused look on the woman's face, as if wondering what the hell he was trying to do. Then there was a massive rush of air and a crack. And just like that the woman was sent flying.
Ben watched in awe then horror as she went sailing above the warehouse that Katie had been fighting in and seemed like she was gonna land on the other side of the street and hit the building there. His third Kinetic Skill when unleashed with a bunch of energy was even stronger than he’d expected. But it was just too hard to use safely. The amount of energy released was difficult to control and Ben could feel the large crack that ran through the crystal now. Also, if he had messed up controlling it, it probably would have taken his fingers off.
But Ben only barely considered those things as he stared at the woman. Worry and dread filled him as he watched her sail through the air.
Was that too much? He didn’t kill the woman, did he? She seemed to move around at a very fast speed so she should have Enhancer durability of some kind, right?
All these thoughts ran through Ben’s mind as he watched, unable to look away. Then the woman hit the building, bounced off the building much slower than before, and started heading back towards them at a run.
Ben let out a sigh of relief at the sight before he realized the fight was still on and straightened up. Now was the chance to get out of here. Katie and her friend were out so they just needed to—Shit!
Ben looked down to see several large monsters burst from the warehouse. Each one was almost as big as a horse and looked like… Well, Ben wasn’t sure, but it was kind of like the horror show mix of an otter and squid. They each had the bodies of massive otters but had tentacles extending from their backs that were tipped with thick barbs that sparked with electricity.
Katie’s Attack Bugbots swarmed around them, blasting them with bolts of blue energy that left craters in their flesh, but the tentacles swished quickly through the air, occasionally smashing a Bugbot aside and even outright skewering one of them.
Following behind the monsters was a woman in purple. She had long blonde hair and wore a domino mask as well as a purple and black form-fitting bodysuit. She stood at the doorway with a hand on her hip and just waited at the door.
Coming out from behind her was a man in a baggy red and gray outfit. Something gray swirled around him but occasionally it seemed to glow with an inner red light. He cracked his knuckles as he came out and looked to be ready to join the fight.
Needing to do something, Ben decided to go with a move he’d considered but hadn’t had the chance to practice, either. He activated his third Kinetic Skill and set his half-full gem to fully release in five seconds. Then, hoping for the best, he visualized the angle he needed to get the gem to where he wanted and threw with everything he had while applying kinetic energy to the gem along that angle.
Having a decent throw, combined with his power, and having the high ground, meant that Ben’s throw was more than able to cross the distance. The quartz sailed through the air, crossed the street, and was gonna land several feet to the left of the doorway. Hopefully, that was far enough away to distract them but not hurt them.
The man, maybe some kind of Ash Invoker, seemed to see it and sent his ash out at the gem. But it was too late and the gem went off right as the ash reached and enveloped it. There was a loud explosion and the ash was sent everywhere, but mainly back towards the two Villains, blocking them from view.
Ben winced at the sound. Katie had warned him that the explosion would be pretty powerful if their calculations were correct, but just how loud it was took him off guard. Still, it should be fine. He’d thrown it pretty far away from the Villains so at worst, their ears were really hurting at the moment.
“I’m throwing another!” Ben shouted down, then quickly pulled out another quartz from his inventory. This one he’d specially prepared for throwing and was only filled to a quarter. After this, he’d only have one more until he needed to use one of his full crystals. And he really didn’t want to do that as that might be the equivalent of setting off a tenth of a stick of dynamite. “Finish up and let’s go!”
Down below Katies Attack Bugbots had been reduced to half. However, Katie and Resolve were out of the shield now and fighting the monsters directly. Katie was punching and lashing out at the monsters, flashes of blue happening every time she hit and the monsters were sent reeling. Some tentacles lashed out and hit her, but a flare of blue happened and Katie remained fine. All the while, her remaining Bugbots continued to flit around the battlefield, blasting away at the monsters with energy bolts.
Resolve, on the other hand, was using a sword and slicing through the monsters with a level of proficiency that was almost scary. He couldn’t quite make her out at times, as darkness seemed to consume her form and weapon periodically, but what he did see was very impressive. She moved like a Martial Adept, and he would have thought she was one, if not for the blast of darkness she sent from her hands or the same darkness that wrapped around the heads of some of the monsters.
It was startling to think the girl was just a C-Ranker, but Ben couldn’t focus on that.
The bouncing Villain still wasn’t back yet but that probably wouldn’t last. She seemed to be able to move really fast but probably needed to build up momentum. So she could be back any moment depending on how long that took. They needed to leave.
So Ben did the only thing he could do to help things along. He reared his hand back and threw his quartz again, using the same method as before with both his Skills. This time he aimed for the area between the monsters and the dispersing ash since Katie and Resolve had moved further away from the warehouse.
As the crystal flew through the air, the ash seemed to come alive and it whipped out towards the quartz. Ben’s eyes widened for a second, afraid that it might send it toward the girls, but the gem went off just as a tendril of ash hit it.
Another, quieter, explosion rang out, but it was still enough to send the ash scattering again. Neither Villain seemed eager to advance, either, which was a good sign.
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Down below, Katie finished off the nearest monster and then ran at Resolve. She grabbed onto her friend's shoulder and then… Resolve sent a blast of darkness right at Ben.
It happened so fast that he couldn’t dodge at all.
And then he found himself almost knocked off his feet as both Katie and Resolve appeared in front of him.
“Whoa, what—”
“—No time,” Katie shouted as she grabbed him and pulled him from the edge of the building. “Let’s get out of here. You grab Ms. Moron over there and head to Haven. I can track you and I’ll keep up. Your anti-grav is better for heavy loads.”
“Hey, who are you calling a moron! Or heavy!” Resolve shouted in indignation. “And who the hell is this anyway?”
“He’s Gem!” Katie said as she leaped into the air and was followed by her Carrier Bugbots that had been waiting with Ben. “He’s a friend. Now let’s go before they catch up with us. You can’t teleport anymore so just let him take you. This isn’t the time to be stubborn.”
“You heard the lady,” Ben said, moving quickly towards the girl. He was ready to jump back in case she was violent but she just crossed her arms at him. Ben shrugged at that and almost moved to carry her bridal style before he realized that would use both his hands. He paused for a moment before he decided to go with the easiest solution and pulled out one of the inherited crystals and handed it to the girl. “Ugh, actually. Can you carry this first? I need you to hold it against me or we can’t fly.”
Resolve gave him a confused look but took the crystal. Ben then quickly turned on his Bugpack's antigrav, then picked up the girl in a bridal carry. That earned him an annoyed sigh, but she held the gem closer to him and that was enough for him. He tapped into it and sent himself up and away as he kicked off the ground.
“I’ll watch our back,” Katie said over the earpiece. “Just head to Haven as fast as you can and only slow down once we’ve reached the lake. Don’t want to get intercepted by Heroes for coming in too fast.”
“Will do,” Ben replied, looking around nervously as he did. He wasn’t just on the lookout for Villains though. With his crystal explosions and the rest of the fighting, Heroes had to be on the way.
And if that happened, they’d be in a lot of trouble, even if they were fighting Villains.
Ben resisted a sigh as he flew fast, moving quickly away from the scene of the fight. With a moody teenage girl in his arms and no cube in sight, he couldn’t help but wonder how things came to this.
Well, at least he’d survived his first super fight. Even if all he did was blast a Villain across a whole building and then throw explosive crystals at two other Villains.
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“Just what were you thinking! Why would you do something so crazy!”
“You know why! And it wasn’t crazy! I almost had the fucker but then one of the bitches somehow spotted me. It was Powers bullshit. It happens. But even then I managed to hamstring the fucker and I could have gotten him if not for a lucky shot by that Bounce bitch!”
“Well, maybe they just had infrared! It doesn’t have to be powers and I could have detected something like that! And even if it was Powers bullshit, you know what would have helped you? If you had backup! If you had someone to fucking watch your back! What the hell were you gonna do if I wasn’t in there? What if when you finally decided you had to leave you weren’t near a window or something!”
“I’m not an idiot, Katie! I would have known when to run and it’s not hard to find a path out for me!”
“It’s Swarm Sovereign in costume, ‘Dark Resolve.’”
“Oh, don’t you get started with the name thing. The name doesn’t matter! I’m not one of those showy Hero types. I’m trying to get some real justice done. Also, it’s still better than Swarm Sovereign. Seriously? Sovereign? Could you be any more pretentious?”
“Pretentious? Me? What about…”
Ben sighed to himself and tuned the two fighting out. They’d been like this ever since they’d landed on the Shore on the East Side of Haven. They’d gone around the island just in case, even though none of the villains had seemed to be fliers. Now, on the isolated shore away from prying eyes and ears, the two would not stop arguing.
Honestly, it was surprising to see how worked up Katie was. Not that he didn’t realize Katie had a fiery side. It’s just that normally, at least with Ben, Anna, and Connor, it never got to this point. With Ben and Connor, they usually weren’t a match for a fiery Katie. And Anna, well there was a reason they often compared her to a mom. She had a way of winning arguments without raising her voice and usually a heap full of extra sugary sweetness.
Dark Resolve, though, was not like any of them at all. She couldn’t cow Katie into submission with niceness and wasn’t willing to be cowed either. It would have almost been entertaining if not for the fact that they weren’t arguing about silly things or games but something rather important.
The worst thing about it was he could see there was no winning this argument the way it was going. Katie clearly wanted her friend to not go after those guys alone again. But she was way too amped up to use the obvious ace they had to be able to get her friend to at least let them come along next time. Or she just wanted her friend to admit she was an idiot and apologize. One of the two…
Either way, they were getting nowhere, and unless he wanted to be here all night he needed to do something.
“Okay, enough!” Ben shouted after another full minute of arguing. “You’re shouting isn’t helping anything!”
Both girls spun to face Ben after that and he took a step back in trepidation. He also held up his hands placatingly. Katie was his height and fully teched out in her gear cut a pretty impressive sight. Combined with the look on her face, it was definitely enough to make Ben wary.
Dark Resolve on the other hand… She was a lot shorter than either Ben or Katie, more a normal young woman’s height, but the glare in her eyes and the memory of how she fought more than made up for it. Honestly, he was a lot more worried about her than Katie. After all, he’d known Katie forever, and aside from kicking him on the shin lightly when she was annoyed, he didn’t really have much to fear from her.
“And who the hell are you to butt in any way?” Dark Resolve said, walking up to him and poking him in the chest. “K-Swarm is a friend but I don’t even know you! I don’t have to take your shit!”
“Hey, don’t you talk to him like that!” Katie yelled. “He helped save your dumb ass! You should be thanking him. Even if he’s butting in. And don’t bother, Gem. She’s way too pig-headed to listen to reason. And once she starts yelling about something, there is no stopping her loud mouth.”
Dark Resolve spun on her friend. “I have a big mouth? Me? Are you freaking kidding me—”
“Okay, enough!” Ben shouted even louder this time, getting between the two girls. Normally he wasn’t one to get involved in an argument like this but it was getting ridiculous. Also, all the cracking his voice endured was starting to pay off as he managed a rather deep and loud shout over the more high-pitched arguing duo. “Like, I get it. You're both mad. You both think you're right. But since you're both obviously not gonna back down, just cool it for now! You can argue later. How about we focus on something more important?”
“Like what,” Dark Resolve said with a scowl as she crossed her arms. She was barely cowed but at least she wasn’t shouting.
Katie, thankfully, decided to let him talk and not start the argument over again.
“Like,” Ben said, taking a couple of steps back so he wasn’t between them and could look at them both. “Working together—And before you interrupt—Let me just ask you this. How long did it take you to find those guys?”
“What?” Dark Resolve asked, taken aback. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Everything. After all, you need to find them again, right? Well, Katie and I need something from those guys as well. And I’m guessing, unlike us, you don’t have an easy way to track them down. And since we attacked them in their lair or whatever, do you think they're just gonna stick around and let you come at them for round two?”
Dark Resolve opened her mouth to retort but didn’t say anything after a moment. Then she frowned. “Shit…”